“He crucified families, Curran. I could smell their rotting bodies. And then he had the audacity to tell me that this is what happens to people who disobey him. Disobey. Like I’m one of his flunkies who stare at him with adoration and throw themselves off a cliff because he frowned at them. I can’t take it anymore. He sits there and taunts me. I have to protect my land.”

“When did it become ‘my land’?” he asked quietly. “It was ‘the city’ just a few months ago.”

“It became my land when I claimed it. Nobody else wanted to step up and defend it from him.”

“What about them?” He nodded slightly toward the mercs arranging Stoyan in a vehicle. “Did they not step up? Did I not step up?”

I wanted to hit him.

Full stop.

I took a deep breath and blew the air out.

Where did that come from? I loved him.

“Barabas is a friend,” Curran said.

“And?”

“You seem to have forgotten that. I’m reminding you.”

I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Like he was trying to figure out if there was something wrong with me.

“Roland’s grooming Julie to become his next Warlord. She’s still talking to him and there is nothing I can do to stop it.”

“I’ll speak to her,” Curran said.

“It won’t do any good. We both talked this into the ground. He’s got his claws into her and I don’t know how to pry her loose.”

“We’ll fight for her,” he said. “To the very end. But she’s her own person, Kate.”

“She’s a kid! He’s thousands of years old.”

“She’s sixteen and it’s an old sixteen. She loves you and me. I’m not worried. He tried his shit on me, he tried it on you, and we’re both still here. We didn’t run off to join his crazy parade. Julie is our child. She bucks against authority. I don’t think it’s as bad as you think. But there will come a point when she’ll make a decision you don’t like and you’ll be powerless to stop it.”

But I wasn’t powerless. I could order her and she wouldn’t be able to refuse my command. And then I would become my father.

“I’m going to the office,” I told him. I was done talking. I needed space and time to sort myself out.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll drop by later, after I’m done at the Guild.”

“If you want.” Okay, I was being a total ass now. “I’d like to see you.”

“As you wish,” he said.

•   •   •